April 11, 2007 Extension Update

Dear Extension Colleagues:

I hope you found last week's Biosecurity/Extension conference useful. Thank you for your participation and attendance. It is my goal in the future that we can provide the opportunity for all  Extension faculty and staff to attend.  I also want to extend a special thank you to the Business and Resource Planning Office for all they do support Cooperative Extension, in addition to the many others that I thanked on Friday. If you have suggestions for our next All Extension conference, make some notes or email them to Bea before we all get busy again.

I am pleased to report that NMSU fared well in Santa Fe at the legislature this year. This reflects a vote of confidence for NMSU and the continuous hard work of faculty and staff. I have attached a preliminary summary from Ricardo Rel of Extension funded initiatives (PDF). This includes all state funding for Cooperative Extension-existing and new appropriations. We are uncertain at this time which of the new appropriations will be recurring, and which will not, this will determine how these resources will be used. We are hopeful that all will be recurring, but it could be several weeks before the determination is made by the state financial authority.

Having recently returned from Jordan, I am reflecting on the varied challenges across the provinces and political factions that lay ahead for us as we carry out the Iraq Extension project. We left Jordan feeling confident that we will conduct training as early June for Iraqi participants. My hope is that this training will provide opportunities for agents and specialists who might choose to be involved. The consortium of US universities are currently working on the location and staging of these trainings, we will keep those of you interested posted.

Mary Benanti is replacing Victor Vanegas as the College contact for University Communications; however, the District Extension contacts remain the same. For those on campus, Mary is your new contact for news stories and can be reached at 646-3223 or mbenanti@nmsu.edu.

To help facilitate communication of NMSU university-wide Extension and Outreach programs, I have asked the College of Ag and Home Economics webmaster, Connie Padilla to create an NMSU Extension and Outreach website. The site is intended to be a "portal" to all NMSU Extension and Outreach programs available in all colleges and on all campuses. The site was developed with the intent of highlighting areas of outreach and taking the consumer to the appropriate location(s) within in the university system. The site will be listed on the NMSU Home page at "Extension and Outreach." Currently, this selection takes you to the College of Ag and Home Economics Cooperative Extension site. This new NMSU Extension and Outreach web site will replace the current CAHE CES pages. All of the College of Ag Extension and Outreach information will be incorporated into the format of the new NMSU Extension and Outreach web site. The site is at http://extension.nmsu.edu  Please take a look at it and give us some feedback-ideas and suggestions to make it better. Send comments to Connie Padilla at: agwebmaster@nmsu.edu  Would also like to thank Connie for great efforts in pulling this together.

I also wanted to share with you a unique partnership between NMSU's Dairy Extension Program and Penn State's Dairy Alliance program (http://www.dairyalliance.org) This partnership provides programs to progressive dairy producers, their employees, and the agribusiness professionals who advise them. The programs focus on multiple subject areas, and integrate knowledge from various fields to help solve complex dairy problems such as in the areas of business management, human resource management, information management, nutrient management and workforce development. Programs and courses will be made available in New Mexico, to be taught on location throughout the State, depending on interest and participation.  

Paul